Enter the Aardvark

December 9, 2019
Anthony (The Convalescent) stitches together stories from repressive Victorian England and venal contemporary American politics in this marvelous, tragic farce populated by characters uncomfortable in their own skin. In Namibia, 1875, naturalist Sir Richard Ostet sends an aardvark specimen back to England to be stuffed by his friend and love interest, taxidermist Titus Downing, whose unparalleled creations are famed for how the artist captures each animal’s jiva, or the “immortal life-essence of each living being.” After Downing’s uncanny aardvark shows up on the doorstep of U.S. Congressman Alexander Paine Wilson in present-day D.C., the press digs into its past owners, including Hermann Goring’s father, and its presumed sender, Wilson’s secret male lover, triggering a career-threatening scandal for Wilson, an ambitious, Ronald Reagan–obsessed Republican who proudly wields a “0” rating from the ACLU. Anthony alternates between the congressman’s travails and Downing’s taxidermic preparations, which reveal the hidden beauty within the creature’s “appalling morphology.” While the overly broad satirical portrait of Wilson detracts from his plotline’s emotional resonance, the novel’s smooth comic machinery builds toward a satisfying climax that reveals how the aardvark’s history bears on the congressman’s present. This idiosyncratic satire is full of wonders and warnings. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic.

January 15, 2020
A story of taxidermy, political intrigue, and love between men from the author of The Convalescent (2009). The story begins at the beginning--or close enough. It begins with the birth--or close enough--of our planet. Several eons pass over the next few pages until a Victorian naturalist traveling in Africa encounters his first aardvark. Then another story begins, and in this story, "you"--these sections are narrated in the second person--are an up-and-coming young Republican legislator with a Ronald Reagan fetish. These two stories become intertwined when an aardvark specimen Sir Richard Ostlet sent to his friend and lover Titus Downing, a taxidermist, is delivered to Alexander Paine Wilson's D.C. town house. As both narratives unfold, it becomes clear that Wilson and Downing have a great deal in common. The taxidermist is compelled to be circumspect about his relationship with Ostlet because what they do together is an actual crime in 19th-century England. For Wilson, coming out is impossible not only because of his political party, but also because he doesn't even define himself as gay. Yes, he has frequent and very enjoyable sexual encounters with a philanthropist named Greg Tampico, but they're just two straight guys who happen to enjoy sex with other men. The aardvark serves as a sort of intermediary between these two men and their lovers. Resurrecting this strange beast allows Downing to stay connected with Ostlet even after Ostlet has abandoned him and married a woman. When a FedEx truck dumps this selfsame aardvark on Wilson's doorstep, he sees it as a message from Greg--one that the congressman will spend most of the novel struggling to decipher. In addition to providing a lot of detail about the art of taxidermy, Anthony offers meditations on the interconnectedness of all things. There are also ghosts and Nazis, in case all that isn't enough. Weirdly compelling and compellingly weird.

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February 1, 2020
The titular mammal at the center of this utterly unpredictable satire from Anthony (The Convalescent, 2010) is only alive on the page for a frenzied few seconds before it's killed in 1875 by a hunter working for British naturalist Sir Richard Ostlet, on a mission to gather "strange mammals" in Africa. Ostlet sends the "marvelously humpbacked, profoundly clawed" creature to his friend, taxidermist, and secret lover Titus Downing before taking a deadly dose of the camphor lumps normally used to preserve his specimens. Meanwhile, in the present, readers meet Representative Alex Wilson, a conservative, Reagan-idolizing, and closeted young Virginia congressman on the verge of reelection, just as he receives a most curious package: a taxidermied aardvark belonging to his own secret lover, whom he'll soon learn is dead. Anthony keeps her complex plot moving swiftly with constant jumps between the two story lines, which begin to flop wildly over one another, and twists (Eyeball transplants! Hauntings! Backstabbing!) aplenty. A wholly original, entertaining, history-infused, and politically engaged novel of the deeds and misdeeds of lonely, repressed men.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)